Bad Idea Theater, installing and servicing hangovers since the twentieth century

Your
mom called, she's worried about your drinking. She asked us to have a
talk with you, so here goes. We don't suggest you try any of these
drinks, drinking is bad for you. It won't make you look cooler, smell
nicer, or do anything to fix your rather unpleasant personality. It
will however give those people you call friends an excellent
opportunity to photograph your most embarrassing moments and
immortalize them on the internet. Don't say we didn't warn you!

A
few bits of advice before we start:

Hangovers

If
you find that you must drink, we strongly suggest that you have a glass
of water in between each drink. It also wouldn't hurt if you took an
aspirin before you start, as well as a multi-vitamin containing
b-complex vitamins. Hopefully this will minimize the hangover you are
so desperately trying to create. Oh, and when you are hugging that
tree, talking to God and telling him you'll never do this again (you
Liar!), tell him we said Hi.

For
those who care, and I'm assuming that's just me, I thought I would
write a few words on the history of drinking and the evolution of the
cocktail. It will get ranty at the end, but I'll warn you when that
happens. Oh, and by the way, I can't really prove any of this, but it's
mostly true.

The
recorded history of alcohol goes back as far as the written record of
mankind. The ancient Egyptians brewed Beer and there is some difference
of opinion among scholars as to whether the beginnings of organized
agriculture were due to the desire to make bread or the need to make
beer. The fermented beverages of beer, ale, wine and even milk (not
kidding; see koumiss) have been with us through the ages. In order to
strengthen beer or wine, also known as "fortifying" it, the beverage
was frozen and the ice skimmed off. This removed excess water and
therefore increased the potency of the drink. Somewhere, lost in the
mists of time, some enterprising individual discovered or invented
distillation. It was learned that by raising the temperature to some
degree (ok, its about 160 degrees F), but lower than the boiling point
of water, the alcohol could be evaporated and reconstituted in another
container, resulting in a distilled spirit. The down side, of course,
was that the first alcohol to evaporate was the poisonous methyl
alcohol (which either blinds or kills you), but for those willing to
pour off the first bit, the rest of the batch was yummy ethyl alcohol.
The fractional distillation process allowed wine to become brandy and
beer to become whiskey. The varieties of distilled spirits flourished
as people went around fermenting everything they could find, distilling
them, and convincing people to drink them. To this day many countries
have a spirit they enjoy with great national pride, such as Russian
Vodka, Scandinavian Aquavit, Scottish Scotch (that doesn't quite roll
off the tongue, does it?), and American Bourbon (although we had to
steal the name from the French).

The Cocktail:

The
word cocktail is of dubious origin, there are many stories, myths and
legends as to how the word originated and I leave it to the reader to
research and choose the story they would like to believe. I believe I
can say with some assurance, the concept of the Cocktail originated in
the United States. The literary usage of the word goes back as least as
far as 1806 when the following was written in the American magazine
"The Balance": "Cocktail is a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits
of any kind, sugar, water, and bitters - it is vulgarly called bittered
sling and is supposed to be an excellent electioneering potion".
In the 1950's the variety of cocktails was very limited, aside from
aperitifs and straight (from the bottle) drinks, the alternatives were
few. The Martini, The Manhattan, The Gibson, all very simple and
straight forward drinks, the Rusty nail, the Whiskey Sour and its child
the Ward Eight, with a few more ingredients. As life moved towards the
60's, more drinks appeared on the scene. The Screwdriver was developed
(a tasty concoction of Vodka and orange juice), which developed into
the Harvey Wallbanger with the addition of Galliano. The Wallbanger was
then morphed into the "Slow Comfortable Screw up Against The Wall" by
adding Sloe gin and Southern comfort.

OK, here's where the ranty part begins:

This
is where the problem started, you didn't really need the Galliano to
make it taste good, but you needed it to put the wall in the name
(truthfully I believe the Slow Comfortable Screw came first). Great!
Now it's not about the taste of the drink any more, it's about having a
cutesy name (in fairness you have to give the SCSUATW credit for having
all the ingredients, but still...). We have now reached the dawn of the
age where any drunken sot can invent the worst tasting concoctions for
the sole purpose of thinking they invented a drink, without possessing
the slightest bit of skill or common sense. For example, The Prairie
Fire. This one is just stupid, the only reason for this drink is to
have your friend trick you into drinking it. The truth is if you're
drinking this, you don't need a drink, you need new friends. Now with
the advent of the Internet you have every bonehead on the planet
throwing make believe recipes around like they have any clue what they
are doing. Come up with a sexy sounding name and throw random things in
a glass and suddenly you're Joe Cool. Just looking at the ingredient
lists on some of these drinks is enough to make you swear off drinking.
Not to mention the distillers creating their own crappy versions to
push their product. Now there exists seventeen different versions of
every drink all except one of them wrong, so when I sidle up to the bar
and order a cocktail, the bartender has to look it up in a rolodex and
then serves me a completely screwed up cocktail.

CUT
IT OUT!!! You're ruining it for everyone! Admit that you don't know how
to make a drink! Stop trying to impress your friends! We don't need
seven thousand cocktails and if we did, we still wouldn't need the one
you want to invent. You don't know what you're doing. You don't go
around inventing new surgical techniques, do you? Of course not,
because you aren't a surgeon. Surgeons spend years learning their craft
before they are set loose on the public. It's not currently a crime to
make a crappy cocktail, but it should be. You're all lucky I'm not in
charge of this planet, cause' I'd be making some changes!
...Ummm.... Sorry about that... All I wanted was a nice tasty beverage.

Bad Idea
Theater
makes no guarantees as to the suitability or usefulness of its content.
No warranties expressed or implied as to the actions of its members or
their pets. We also take no responsibility for things that have
happened, will happen or might happen. We also disavow any knowledge of
anything that would in any way incriminate or exonerate us. Please keep
hands inside the car at all times. No Spitting!